Final Report on Seismic Microzonation of Port-au-Prince
- This is the public edition of a study whose full version runs to about 800 pages. The notice describes it as a lightened version in ten fact sheets of the 2011 to 2013 study, and lists what the full report contains: a 69-page synthesis report, a geological report of 86 pages, a landslide report of 91 pages, a report on site effects and liquefaction of 142 pages, and four annexes of geophysical and geotechnical measurements running to 436 pages.
- It names the audience split explicitly. The ten fact sheets are for readers who want a quick view of the content and results, and for residents wanting to know the hazards that could affect their neighbourhoods; construction professionals, specialist design offices and planners are pointed to the full report.
- The map set is itemized, which is what makes this notice useful as an index: lithological facies and faults; homogeneous seismic response zones by specific soil class; the same by IBC building-code soil class; topographic site effects; landslide hazard; and liquefaction hazard, at 1/25,000 across the study area with 1/10,000 zooms on the centres of Port-au-Prince and Pétion-Ville.
- The study covers about 80 square kilometres across Port-au-Prince, Pétion-Ville, Delmas, Tabarre and Cité Soleil, was carried out by BRGM with LNBTP and BME under a research contract for MTPTC on Haitian state funds, and the notice gives three government websites where the synthesis and maps can be downloaded.
This document is the March 2015 printed notice for the seismic microzonation of the Port-au-Prince agglomeration. It says the ten-sheet version is a lighter presentation of a study carried out from 2011 to 2013 by BRGM, LNBTP and BME under an MTPTC research contract financed by the Haitian state. The study covers about 80 km2 across Port-au-Prince, Petion-Ville, Delmas, Tabarre and Cite Soleil. The notice is intended for readers who need a quick view of the study's content and results and of the main hazards that could affect residential areas during future major earthquakes, while pointing professionals to the full synthesis report, geological report, landslide report, site-effects and liquefaction report, and geophysical and geotechnical annexes.
It frames the work around the 12 January 2010 earthquake, whose damage and casualties are linked to the earthquake source, high building vulnerability and aggravating local soil and subsurface effects. The notice explains microzonation as a commune or urban-agglomeration scale hazard tool for prevention, emergency planning, public information, anti-seismic construction parameters, risk-prevention plans and urban planning. Its conclusions state that seismic hazard must be treated as high across the Port-au-Prince agglomeration, but expected effects vary by sector: higher regional hazard toward Petion-Ville due to proximity to the Petion-Ville/Tiburon fault system, topographic site effects and strong landslide hazard in southern hilly areas, and foundation-soil, liquefaction and lithological amplification issues on flatter coastal and Cul-de-Sac plain terrain.
The recommendations call for accounting for active faults f1, f3 and f4, refining their traces and activity rates, avoiding high-stakes buildings in fault zones where possible, using specific soil classes in some cases, evaluating topographic slopes for parcel-scale projects, turning landslide hazard maps into regulatory risk-prevention documents, and using individual or collective construction adaptations to limit liquefaction effects.
How to cite
National Laboratory for Buildings and Public Works (LNBTP); Bureau of Mines and Energy (BME), 2015, Final Report on Seismic Microzonation of Port-au-Prince, https://web.archive.org/web/20160330112127if_/http://www.bme.gouv.ht/microzonage/Microzonage%20final%208%20avril%202015.pdf